Indonesia’s oil and gas imports amounted to US$3.94 billion in November 2013, up 13.39 percent from $3.47 billion in the previous month, the Indonesia Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said on Thursday.
BPS head Suryamin said oil and gas imports had reached $41 billion during the January-November period of 2013, up $2.2 million from $38.85 billion, the Jakarta Post said.
“The increase in oil and gas imports were triggered by increases in crude oil and oil product imports, which reached $13.5 million and $452.8 million, respectively,” Suryamin told a press conference in Jakarta as quoted by Antara news agency.
Indonesian producers will pump 804,000 barrels a day of oil this year, according to J. Widjonarko, the acting head of SKK Migas, the main regulator for the upstream oil and gas sector. That would be the lowest output since 1969, falling short of the government’s target of 870,000 barrels, Bloomberg reported.
“We’re only optimizing by draining existing reserves because there aren’t any new reserves found,” Widjonarko said in Jakarta on Dec. 30.
Only 72 of the country’s 329 working oil and gas areas are currently in production, he told Bloomberg. Drilling-related expenses that are reimbursed to producers by the government, known as cost recovery, increased almost fourfold to $15.98 billion in the past 11 years, according to data from SKK Migas. Extracting oil and gas typically gets more expensive as fields mature and explorers tap reserves in more challenging terrain such as Papua and offshore eastern Kalimantan.
The value of crude oil imports amounted to $12.5 billion during the January-November period of 2013, up $2.4 billion or 24.91 percent from $10.01 billion in the same period of 2012, prompting the increased figure in oil and gas imports.
In January-November 2013, Indonesia’s oil and gas product imports declined by $187.9 million or 0.72 percent and $120.9 million or 4.26 percent, respectively, from the previous period.
